And they're off.....

Yes... that is right... after many tears, frustrations and irritations those pesky little buggers called invitations are out of my hands and off in the mail to their new homes. There were a few speed bumps in the road to the finish product and even sending them out, but we got over it and they are done.

I know you are only wanting to see the pictures, but I think I will keep you in suspense a tad bit longer and tell you why these invites were such a labor of love....

For starters, I decided early on that I wanted pretty (expensive) pocket fold invitations. I KNEW that what I was picturing in my head would more than likely cost me upwards of $500-$600. There is no way in ANY lifetime that Andrew would go for that so I knew I had to figure out another way to get what I wanted while staying in HIS budget. After dozens of Google searches, paper samples and a few less than respectable mock ups, I finally settled on the exact look I wanted.

With our colors being Plum & Champagne, I was afraid of having too much or not enough of either color present in the design to effectively convey the look I was going for. I decided on a Black Linen card stock for the pocket fold, a solid Plum/Purple card stock for the invitation mat and a metallic Champagne card stock for the actual invitation and inserts. It took several tries to find a design and layout that I was happy with but was relentless in the pursuit.

Little did I know, choosing such a thick card stock to print the invitation on was not the smartest idea in the world. It took 3 people, 4 different printers and a bunch of scrap/test sheets to find a printer that A.) didn't think my expensive card stock was dinner and B.) actually printed on the paper without smudging the ink. I finally ended up using our home ink jet printer to slowly.....SLOWLY... and print all the paper needed. I was thrilled when everything was all printed and stacked ready to be cut. I had only a few sheets of the metallic champagne paper left and that was just fine by me. I WAS DONE!! Lol.

I went to FedEx Kinko's the next day, left them to cut the paper, ran to grab some extra supplies to finish this project, picked up the freshly cut inserts and was off to meet with a couple of my girls to put all 100 of these invitations together. When we sat down to start placing the inserts in the pocket folds I realized that less than half of the inserts we cut correctly. There we inserts with complete sentences cut off, inserts with the titles cut in half and even some inserts with the dimensions changed completely. If it were as simple as going home and reprinting them I would have, but unfortunately I was out of paper and honesty out of time. Andrew complained to Kinko's on my behalf and we got a complete refund, but that didn't change the fact that I had to order more paper (that I did not need,) wait for it to arrive, reprint and then trust Kinko's not to mess up a second time.

That was just the first issue I had with the invitation fiasco. But I think I'll save it all for another post. So without further adieu.... here are my completed wedding invitations.